In order to qualify as mentees, the business’ CEO should have attended all three tracks of the series. The company must also have been operating for at least one year, and should have at least 10 employees. The CEO’s response to the question “Why should you and your company be the beneficiary of the mentorship program?” was also evaluated, as part of the shortlisting process.
From its humble beginnings as a cozy cafe cart in the Ateneo de Manila High School cafeteria, Joyce Yu has grown True Blends Tea and Coffee into a multi-branch coffee shop, with stores in key cities across the country. True Blends is now a top of mind destination for those in search of honest-to-goodness tea and coffee concoctions, and tasty snacks.
2020 was pegged to be a year of aggressive expansion for True Blends, but their plans had to be put on hold when the pandemic hit. Instead of being discouraged, Joyce saw the need to adapt, and find opportunities amidst this crisis. One thing she did to help build resiliency among her team, whom she credits as essential factors in her 11 years of business success, was to allow them to open up their own satellite branches of True Blends in their communities.
Moving forward into a new work normal, Joyce is excited to use Lark as an all-in-one solution for her business. Admittedly not very techie, Joyce is also looking forward to learning more about the app and its features. From what she has seen and heard about Lark so far, a feature that she appreciates is the cloud storage, which can conveniently hold all their franchise-related documents in one place. By onboarding all of True Blends’ franchisees into the app, their virtual collaboration can improve as well.
At the awarding event for the selected mentees, Joyce shared this piece of advice with aspiring business owners. “Dream big and start small. Use your skills and resources. Plan, focus, start doing it, and most importantly, pray, ask for guidance all the time.”
To fellow business leaders, Joyce shared this message. “This may be a very difficult time for all of us, but it is a time to pivot, find more opportunities, not just to earn but also to help each other as a nation.”
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